[pmwiki-users] Cookbook recipes and organization

Joachim Durchholz jo at durchholz.org
Fri Apr 15 15:24:28 CDT 2005


Patrick R. Michaud wrote:

> I have a question for the group at large:
> 
> Lately in the Cookbook I've noticed a trend towards creating larger 
> recipes, and replacing small simple recipes with larger functions 
> that require downloading zip archives, more documentation, and (to
> me) additional integration effort.  [...] Somehow I feel as though it
> would be better to offer both approaches, with "See Also" links
> pointing to the alternatives, than to replace existing recipes
> altogether.

I'm just imagining I'm searching the recipes for a solution.
Now I imagine seeing a "See Also" button. What's my reaction?

... well, for me personally, it's a big sigh: I'll have to read that 
other recipe as well. Then I have to (somehow) infer from the surface 
descriptions which of the recipes is better suited. I'm forced to make a 
decision that I'm not ready for yet - and, frankly, I don't want to 
evaluate two recipes, I want a *solution*!

So, at least for me, I'd prefer a single recipe. Even if it's larger - 
installing a single large recipe is far less work than installing two 
and comparing them.


There's another bonus: less recipes make it easier for us to concentrate 
on them, both for maintenance and answering questions.


And, of course, there's always a trade-off. Sometimes unifying two 
recipes is far more work than the results would warrant. Sometimes the 
differences between two similar recipes are clear enough so that it's 
easy to decide which one is the right one for me just by reading the 
description. No dogma here :-)

Regards,
Jo



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